1.2 The cure for evil is knowledge, and particularly science: drawing logical conclusions from the facts of nature. There is nothing, no problem of human making, and few problems of nature's making, that cannot be solved or at least ameliorated by reasoning and the application of science.
1.3 Reasoning leads to knowledge of truth. What is truth? It is the most reasonable conclusion from the available evidence. For example, let us say we have found several strata of rock. The lowest strata contain simple fossils, such as insects and mollusks; the middle strata also contain more complex forms such as reptiles and mammals; and the highest strata contain all of these, and human fossils and tools as well.
1.4 A reasonable conclusion from this evidence is that life forms evolved from simpler to more complex forms, and that perhaps humans evolved from them also. This happens to be the truth. It would be unreasonable, and false, to impose mythology on the evidence and say that lower animals sank to the bottom first in some great flood, while the humans sank last, or whatever. Even though the evidence and reason point elsewhere, some people do like to say such things.
1.5 I would like to see the movie Creation. This is a major motion picture about a very major subject, evolution[1]; it stars, among others, the lovely Jennifer Connelly; it has received good reviews in the UK and Canada.
1.6 But I cannot find Creation in the USA, except for Boston, NY, and LA. Everywhere else, all across America, the movie is unavailable. As I currently live in Florida, this movie is far away in more ways than one.
1.7 I suggested to the owners of two local independent theaters, that they should show Creation, but they cringed from the idea, saying the movie was "not mainstream". Admittedly, being a period piece, it could not show Jennifer Connelly in a swimsuit. But I suspect the real reason lies elsewhere.
1.8 Apparently the religiously correct would not stand to hear this information, this confrontation between their cherished beliefs and scientific evidence. Also, it appears that since 40% of Americans deny evolution in favor of the creation myth, Americans are willfully ignorant. Films like Creation could go a long way toward encouraging knowledge.
1.9 So, after everything else they have done in the name of religion (and the list is long and ugly), they had to take my movie. Because of all their insults to human intelligence, I am writing this this essay. I am writing as an antidote to the intellectual poisons of irrationality and ignorance: an inoculation against parasites of the mind.
2.0 Consider this publication an oasis of light, a spring of reason, where your mind may drink the clearest and purest water. I claim no special ability, nor do I have any advanced education. What I do have is an inexhaustible hunger for the truth: to know what really is.
2.1 Now if there is a better way to know the truth than through reason, or through the application of scientific method, I wish someone would show me. There may be a superior way to acquire knowledge of reality, than through the rational mind. If there exists any such thing as psychic or supernatural understanding, I am ready and willing to hear it.
2.2 In fact, if any religious or psychic person can demonstrate that what they believe or practice is true, I will become their most ardent believer. If they can show in my presence, and document, any sort of paranormal knowledge or ability, then I will serve them for life.
2.3 Others have offered money for proof of the paranormal or miraculous; I offer my life. If they cannot produce a miracle or other proof, I request that the miracle workers and psychics stop pretending. Or at least let me have my movie.
[1] Really, the film should have been titled Origin or Charles and Emma, or anything other than Creation. That word could be part of the problem.
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